Chapter Two: Killer Sofa Bed!
"Come on, Toad, I promise I'll catch you!" Fred held his arms out and looked up the tree at Todd. It was Sunday afternoon and Todd had gone up the tree after a cat, unfortunately the cat wasn't really stuck and now it was the Toad who was stuck up the large maple tree on just about the highest branch holding on for his dear life.
"No you won't, Fred, I just know it," Todd yelled down hanging on to the branch with his legs and arms.
"Aw, come on, you're being a pussy!" Pietro yelled from the ground crossing his arms and glaring up at the `tree frog'.
"Am not." A moment of silence as we tried to decide what we were going to do. "Guys."
"Yeah, Toad," I said craning my neck to look up at him.
"I just realized something!"
"And that would be?"
"I'm afraid of heights!" Suddenly he swung to the side and only managed to keep hold of the branch with his right leg and arm.
"Shouldn't you have told us that before you went up the tree?" Pietro cocked his head to the side looking questionly at Todd. "Come on, Todd, just let go. You get thrown around so much and beat up I'm surprised that you are scared of falling." He started to tap his foot at super speed making it look like his foot was missing it was moving so fast.
"Fine, fine, someone just catch me." Todd squeezed his eyes shut and let go of the branch both Pietro and Fred prepared to catch him.
"Uh, excuse me," a voice behind us spoke up and Fred and I turned toward it leaving Pietro to catch Todd. Pietro tried but ended up only breaking Todd's fall.
"Ouch, yo, what happened to catching me?" Todd flipped to his feet and Pietro immediately stood up by him but I was too busy looking the owner of the voice over.
"Uh, can we help you?" She looked so familiar, I knew those brown eyes from somewhere and I knew I'd seen the face before but couldn't quite place it.
"Oh, hello there." And Pietro had recovered from the falling Toad. "May I ask your name and how may I be of service to you?" He was at the girl's side almost instantly and put an arm around her shoulder looking her over.
"I'm Cami." She slipped away from him and looked around the group nervously. The minute she said Cami my breath caught in my throat and I knew just who she was. "I'm looking for Dominic."
"Well, I'm sorry there isn't a Dominic he..." I shoved Pietro to the side getting a startled yelp out of him and just stood in front of her smiling until she smiled back and jumped on me wrapping her arms tightly around my neck.
"Did I hit my head?" Todd asked Fred, as they all looked confused. "Who's the chic and what she doin' trying to kill Lance?"
"Oh yeah, it's Lance now My... Mary, told me, she's the lady who found me a told me where I'd find you, she used to work at the adoption agency and was able to search you down after I asked." I wasn't sure but she might have been lying, probably was but did it matter? I had my little sister back after ten or eleven years. I couldn't even remember anymore! She let go of me and stood in facing me a little shorter than Pietro but taller than Todd, she seemed to be in good shape and was smiling at me. "I think Lance fits you better anyway."
"Me too, shrimp." I ruffled her light brown hair and she ducked away as she always used to and straightened her hair.
"May I just ask WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-GOING-ON?" snapped Pietro looking directly at me. Todd and Fred nodded and I rubbed the back of my neck with an apologetic smile.
"Guys, this is my sister Cami, I never told you about her because I had no clue where she was and well we were sort of dragged apart so remembering hurt." There I had said it, I had confessed a feeling now they couldn't call me a heartless, emotionless bastard or anything anymore. "Cami, this is Pietro, Fred, and Todd."
"Hi ya," she let the duffel bag on he shoulder fall to the floor and offered her hand to each. Fred and Todd immediately took to her, but Pietro was a little wary and for a split second hesitated before shaking her hand.
"Oh, Fred," Todd suddenly said turning to the much larger teen, "thank you so much for catching me, I really appreciated it, yo."
"At least you got out of the tree," I pointed out with a shrug. "So, Cami, got anywhere to stay."
"Sort of planning on here, but I can always find somewhere."
"You can have the sofa bed," I told her. "Come on guys, let's go see if there's anything fit to eat." Pietro ran into the house at top speed and my sister stopped and blinked.
As usual there wasn't big surprise in this dump. Cami seemed a little fascinated with our living conditions, probably wonder how anyone could live here. She had enough money for us to go to the new all you can eat buffet, didn't really know where she got it, but insisted we go since we were giving up our couch. Wait till she saw the couch.
(A/N: after dinner since we all know they eventually got kicked out. For you that are interested that was after Todd tried to start a food fight, Fred ate the place half out, and Pietro continued eyeing Cami suspiciously,)
"Ok, Fred, give me a hand with the couch, no don't pull it apart!" I genuinely hated this sofa bed, it was rusty and hard to pull out and ate people on occasion. With a final creak the hinges gave way snapping out and hitting Fred in the leg just as I jumped out of the way. "Ok, that enough, Fred you bleeding?"
"A bit, nothing bad, this thing is a death trap."
"You've no idea how comforting that is to me," Cami replied rolling her eyes. "I'm going to sleep on a death trap, yay!"
Todd snickered standing in the door way next to her.
"Ain't that exciting?"
"Oh yeah, yell if you need any help," Todd then turned and headed upstairs.
"Yeah, we'll come pry you out." Fred said smiling at her lightly, only person I was afraid wouldn't accept her was Pietro, I don't know why.
"Hmm, I want to stay up and catch up with you, but we have school tomorrow." She'd shown us the schedule and this `Mary' seemed to have taken very good care of her. "I'll help you with your schedule and introduce you to Kitty." She just nodded and sat on the bed like it was full of poisonous snakes before she lied down and pulled the blanket around her. As I turned to go to my room I almost expected my mother to get me that night and say we were going on an adventure, one that would get me landed in a foster home and her dead. I shook the thoughts out of my head and just continued on my way. Cami was here now and nothing was going to go wrong.
~
"You'll-soon-find-that-all-he-talks-about-is-Kitty-anymore." I rushed into the living room and sat on the side of the `death trap' making sure Lance didn't see me. He'd already ignored us because of Kitty and Cami could end up one of two things: another reason for him to not spend time with us his friends, or ignored with the rest of us. "Kitty-this, Kitty-that, gets-annoying-after-a-while."
"I can imagine," I heard her move and sit up. "What's this Kitty like?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"Ok, then why are you here?"
"I know there is no `Mary', I know you're lying and I want to know what else you're lying about." I said it at normal speed so she'd get the pointed that I didn't want to be messed around with.
"I'm keeping a promise," she replied and I was able to see her silhouette in the dark. "I'm not going to break it just because I was told I was lying, I admit I am, but just trust me ok?"
"You think I trust anyone? Well, there's a few people but the person who matters in this world is me." I pointed to myself to emphasize the point. "And if you're putting me or Todd or Fred or any of my friends in danger you've got to go!"
"Relax, Pietro." Oh my god, she had said it correctly. "I'm just here because I want to be able to be with the one person who ever mattered in my pitiful little life, you talk about yourself and friends, well before Mary found me I was planning on flying up so high I couldn't breath anymore. Then I found out that Dom... Lance was still alive and that someone knew where he was. You think I'm going to put him or anyone else in danger?"
"I suppose not, but just remember that I'm- ack!" At that moment the bed decided to fold up on the both of us. Since we'd both been at the head of the bed it clamped down on us unexpectedly and for some odd reason my first reaction was to cover our heads, which didn't help much.
"Ow, this is a death trap." Cami muttered trying to wriggle out of the bed. "TODD! DOES THE OFFER FOR HELP STILL STAND?" No answer, nothing, and I was TRAPPED IN A SOFA BED! "This is not comfortable."
"No shit." The light flickered on and I could make out Lance, since the shadow was too small to be Fred and too big to be Todd. "Hi, we were talking and this damn thing ATE US!"
"Yep, not a good start."
"How did I guess this was going to happen?" Lance groaned trying to get the bed unstuck. We really did need new furniture, big time. "Never mind." With a final yank Cami and I were flung free and sprawled onto the bed. I was immediately on the farthest wall from the sofa and Cami was hiding behind Lance from it.
"I think the floor will be fine to sleep on." Cami said peeking out from behind Lance and I swear I got a glimpse of them as children, Lance looking angry at something and Cami scared. "Just fine."
X(=scene switch)
"All righty then, I've got," Cami looked around the hall Lance having gotten talking to Kitty for `just a moment' that ended up to be five minutes of our ten minute break and Cami still had to find her next class, "CHOIR?" She looked at me frantically, it's amazing how being eaten by a sofa bed can make come together. I was still suspicious though. "I do not sing!"
"Then skip it." I shrugged.
"I can do that?"
"Who's stopping you?"
"My conscious. Can you be held back for not passing Choir?"
"Nah, if you don't pass one of the important classes yeah, but other than that no. I've got Art and haven't been to it more than once a week. When I feel like it, maybe twice at the most." I looked around as she stuffed the schedule into her pocket. "So we'll stir up some trouble."
"Sounds good to me." She paused and then rolled her eyes, "I see why you don't like that Kitty girl." An evil smile crept across her lips and she grabbed my wrist and soon we stood down the hall from where she was talking to Lance. "She'll be our first target, how about?"
"And just what are you going to do?" The bell rang at Kitty smiled and waved at Lance and started to her class holding a stack of papers.
"This." Around her a wind started to pick up and I noticed Cami's eyes glaze over. She'd told us what she did but I'd never actually seen it happen. She flicked her wrist and the wind around Kitty picked up enough to snag the papers from her and started to fly them across the hall.
Lance was looking confused at the scene. "Pietro!" He yelled and looked back rather confused to see me standing there instead of creating the miniature tornado. "What... Cami!" He started to run up to us and the wind stopped.
"What? What did I do?" She smiled innocently and Kitty turned around to glare at us then look confused at the new girl.
"You aren't suppose to..." But we were gone in a matter of seconds. No one was around and Cami and I started to run. He'd get us at home for sure.
I was ahead, naturally, and not going full speed. I stole a glance back and noticed lance was no longer after us, probably decided to go to class like a good little boy. I swear after he had that little experiment with trying to be an X-men he became different, and no longer Lance. For one he never skipped class anymore. "Ok, we're safe."
Cami tried to stop and ended up sliding in to me. "Opps, sorry." She sprang up and held out her hand to pull me up. Then she looked behind her. "I bet she'll be late for class now."
"Of course." A flyer of bright orange paper caught my eye and I rushed over to read it after spotting the word `basketball'. "Oh, not-this-again-every-year-the-principals-bet-on-which-team-is-better-and-at-the-start-of-the-season-we-always-have-to-play-against-this-school. Who-cares-they're-in-Pennsylvania!" I looked back at Cami who was blinking trying to figure out what I had said in the second or so I'd said it.
"Um, ok." She nodded pretending to understand and read the flyer. "Hmm... sounds like fun." She shrugged when I looked at her in disbelief. "Well it does, shut up, don't look at me like that." She slouched against the wall and misjudged or something and her head whacked on the wall. "Ow."
"Maybe we should go, you need to meet the X-geeks sometime."
(A/N: I just wanted them to play someone in Pennsylvania so I could intro the rest of whatever Mystique's team is called. And we know they aren't going to be any little goody goddies!)
"Come on, Toad, I promise I'll catch you!" Fred held his arms out and looked up the tree at Todd. It was Sunday afternoon and Todd had gone up the tree after a cat, unfortunately the cat wasn't really stuck and now it was the Toad who was stuck up the large maple tree on just about the highest branch holding on for his dear life.
"No you won't, Fred, I just know it," Todd yelled down hanging on to the branch with his legs and arms.
"Aw, come on, you're being a pussy!" Pietro yelled from the ground crossing his arms and glaring up at the `tree frog'.
"Am not." A moment of silence as we tried to decide what we were going to do. "Guys."
"Yeah, Toad," I said craning my neck to look up at him.
"I just realized something!"
"And that would be?"
"I'm afraid of heights!" Suddenly he swung to the side and only managed to keep hold of the branch with his right leg and arm.
"Shouldn't you have told us that before you went up the tree?" Pietro cocked his head to the side looking questionly at Todd. "Come on, Todd, just let go. You get thrown around so much and beat up I'm surprised that you are scared of falling." He started to tap his foot at super speed making it look like his foot was missing it was moving so fast.
"Fine, fine, someone just catch me." Todd squeezed his eyes shut and let go of the branch both Pietro and Fred prepared to catch him.
"Uh, excuse me," a voice behind us spoke up and Fred and I turned toward it leaving Pietro to catch Todd. Pietro tried but ended up only breaking Todd's fall.
"Ouch, yo, what happened to catching me?" Todd flipped to his feet and Pietro immediately stood up by him but I was too busy looking the owner of the voice over.
"Uh, can we help you?" She looked so familiar, I knew those brown eyes from somewhere and I knew I'd seen the face before but couldn't quite place it.
"Oh, hello there." And Pietro had recovered from the falling Toad. "May I ask your name and how may I be of service to you?" He was at the girl's side almost instantly and put an arm around her shoulder looking her over.
"I'm Cami." She slipped away from him and looked around the group nervously. The minute she said Cami my breath caught in my throat and I knew just who she was. "I'm looking for Dominic."
"Well, I'm sorry there isn't a Dominic he..." I shoved Pietro to the side getting a startled yelp out of him and just stood in front of her smiling until she smiled back and jumped on me wrapping her arms tightly around my neck.
"Did I hit my head?" Todd asked Fred, as they all looked confused. "Who's the chic and what she doin' trying to kill Lance?"
"Oh yeah, it's Lance now My... Mary, told me, she's the lady who found me a told me where I'd find you, she used to work at the adoption agency and was able to search you down after I asked." I wasn't sure but she might have been lying, probably was but did it matter? I had my little sister back after ten or eleven years. I couldn't even remember anymore! She let go of me and stood in facing me a little shorter than Pietro but taller than Todd, she seemed to be in good shape and was smiling at me. "I think Lance fits you better anyway."
"Me too, shrimp." I ruffled her light brown hair and she ducked away as she always used to and straightened her hair.
"May I just ask WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-GOING-ON?" snapped Pietro looking directly at me. Todd and Fred nodded and I rubbed the back of my neck with an apologetic smile.
"Guys, this is my sister Cami, I never told you about her because I had no clue where she was and well we were sort of dragged apart so remembering hurt." There I had said it, I had confessed a feeling now they couldn't call me a heartless, emotionless bastard or anything anymore. "Cami, this is Pietro, Fred, and Todd."
"Hi ya," she let the duffel bag on he shoulder fall to the floor and offered her hand to each. Fred and Todd immediately took to her, but Pietro was a little wary and for a split second hesitated before shaking her hand.
"Oh, Fred," Todd suddenly said turning to the much larger teen, "thank you so much for catching me, I really appreciated it, yo."
"At least you got out of the tree," I pointed out with a shrug. "So, Cami, got anywhere to stay."
"Sort of planning on here, but I can always find somewhere."
"You can have the sofa bed," I told her. "Come on guys, let's go see if there's anything fit to eat." Pietro ran into the house at top speed and my sister stopped and blinked.
As usual there wasn't big surprise in this dump. Cami seemed a little fascinated with our living conditions, probably wonder how anyone could live here. She had enough money for us to go to the new all you can eat buffet, didn't really know where she got it, but insisted we go since we were giving up our couch. Wait till she saw the couch.
(A/N: after dinner since we all know they eventually got kicked out. For you that are interested that was after Todd tried to start a food fight, Fred ate the place half out, and Pietro continued eyeing Cami suspiciously,)
"Ok, Fred, give me a hand with the couch, no don't pull it apart!" I genuinely hated this sofa bed, it was rusty and hard to pull out and ate people on occasion. With a final creak the hinges gave way snapping out and hitting Fred in the leg just as I jumped out of the way. "Ok, that enough, Fred you bleeding?"
"A bit, nothing bad, this thing is a death trap."
"You've no idea how comforting that is to me," Cami replied rolling her eyes. "I'm going to sleep on a death trap, yay!"
Todd snickered standing in the door way next to her.
"Ain't that exciting?"
"Oh yeah, yell if you need any help," Todd then turned and headed upstairs.
"Yeah, we'll come pry you out." Fred said smiling at her lightly, only person I was afraid wouldn't accept her was Pietro, I don't know why.
"Hmm, I want to stay up and catch up with you, but we have school tomorrow." She'd shown us the schedule and this `Mary' seemed to have taken very good care of her. "I'll help you with your schedule and introduce you to Kitty." She just nodded and sat on the bed like it was full of poisonous snakes before she lied down and pulled the blanket around her. As I turned to go to my room I almost expected my mother to get me that night and say we were going on an adventure, one that would get me landed in a foster home and her dead. I shook the thoughts out of my head and just continued on my way. Cami was here now and nothing was going to go wrong.
~
"You'll-soon-find-that-all-he-talks-about-is-Kitty-anymore." I rushed into the living room and sat on the side of the `death trap' making sure Lance didn't see me. He'd already ignored us because of Kitty and Cami could end up one of two things: another reason for him to not spend time with us his friends, or ignored with the rest of us. "Kitty-this, Kitty-that, gets-annoying-after-a-while."
"I can imagine," I heard her move and sit up. "What's this Kitty like?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"Ok, then why are you here?"
"I know there is no `Mary', I know you're lying and I want to know what else you're lying about." I said it at normal speed so she'd get the pointed that I didn't want to be messed around with.
"I'm keeping a promise," she replied and I was able to see her silhouette in the dark. "I'm not going to break it just because I was told I was lying, I admit I am, but just trust me ok?"
"You think I trust anyone? Well, there's a few people but the person who matters in this world is me." I pointed to myself to emphasize the point. "And if you're putting me or Todd or Fred or any of my friends in danger you've got to go!"
"Relax, Pietro." Oh my god, she had said it correctly. "I'm just here because I want to be able to be with the one person who ever mattered in my pitiful little life, you talk about yourself and friends, well before Mary found me I was planning on flying up so high I couldn't breath anymore. Then I found out that Dom... Lance was still alive and that someone knew where he was. You think I'm going to put him or anyone else in danger?"
"I suppose not, but just remember that I'm- ack!" At that moment the bed decided to fold up on the both of us. Since we'd both been at the head of the bed it clamped down on us unexpectedly and for some odd reason my first reaction was to cover our heads, which didn't help much.
"Ow, this is a death trap." Cami muttered trying to wriggle out of the bed. "TODD! DOES THE OFFER FOR HELP STILL STAND?" No answer, nothing, and I was TRAPPED IN A SOFA BED! "This is not comfortable."
"No shit." The light flickered on and I could make out Lance, since the shadow was too small to be Fred and too big to be Todd. "Hi, we were talking and this damn thing ATE US!"
"Yep, not a good start."
"How did I guess this was going to happen?" Lance groaned trying to get the bed unstuck. We really did need new furniture, big time. "Never mind." With a final yank Cami and I were flung free and sprawled onto the bed. I was immediately on the farthest wall from the sofa and Cami was hiding behind Lance from it.
"I think the floor will be fine to sleep on." Cami said peeking out from behind Lance and I swear I got a glimpse of them as children, Lance looking angry at something and Cami scared. "Just fine."
X(=scene switch)
"All righty then, I've got," Cami looked around the hall Lance having gotten talking to Kitty for `just a moment' that ended up to be five minutes of our ten minute break and Cami still had to find her next class, "CHOIR?" She looked at me frantically, it's amazing how being eaten by a sofa bed can make come together. I was still suspicious though. "I do not sing!"
"Then skip it." I shrugged.
"I can do that?"
"Who's stopping you?"
"My conscious. Can you be held back for not passing Choir?"
"Nah, if you don't pass one of the important classes yeah, but other than that no. I've got Art and haven't been to it more than once a week. When I feel like it, maybe twice at the most." I looked around as she stuffed the schedule into her pocket. "So we'll stir up some trouble."
"Sounds good to me." She paused and then rolled her eyes, "I see why you don't like that Kitty girl." An evil smile crept across her lips and she grabbed my wrist and soon we stood down the hall from where she was talking to Lance. "She'll be our first target, how about?"
"And just what are you going to do?" The bell rang at Kitty smiled and waved at Lance and started to her class holding a stack of papers.
"This." Around her a wind started to pick up and I noticed Cami's eyes glaze over. She'd told us what she did but I'd never actually seen it happen. She flicked her wrist and the wind around Kitty picked up enough to snag the papers from her and started to fly them across the hall.
Lance was looking confused at the scene. "Pietro!" He yelled and looked back rather confused to see me standing there instead of creating the miniature tornado. "What... Cami!" He started to run up to us and the wind stopped.
"What? What did I do?" She smiled innocently and Kitty turned around to glare at us then look confused at the new girl.
"You aren't suppose to..." But we were gone in a matter of seconds. No one was around and Cami and I started to run. He'd get us at home for sure.
I was ahead, naturally, and not going full speed. I stole a glance back and noticed lance was no longer after us, probably decided to go to class like a good little boy. I swear after he had that little experiment with trying to be an X-men he became different, and no longer Lance. For one he never skipped class anymore. "Ok, we're safe."
Cami tried to stop and ended up sliding in to me. "Opps, sorry." She sprang up and held out her hand to pull me up. Then she looked behind her. "I bet she'll be late for class now."
"Of course." A flyer of bright orange paper caught my eye and I rushed over to read it after spotting the word `basketball'. "Oh, not-this-again-every-year-the-principals-bet-on-which-team-is-better-and-at-the-start-of-the-season-we-always-have-to-play-against-this-school. Who-cares-they're-in-Pennsylvania!" I looked back at Cami who was blinking trying to figure out what I had said in the second or so I'd said it.
"Um, ok." She nodded pretending to understand and read the flyer. "Hmm... sounds like fun." She shrugged when I looked at her in disbelief. "Well it does, shut up, don't look at me like that." She slouched against the wall and misjudged or something and her head whacked on the wall. "Ow."
"Maybe we should go, you need to meet the X-geeks sometime."
(A/N: I just wanted them to play someone in Pennsylvania so I could intro the rest of whatever Mystique's team is called. And we know they aren't going to be any little goody goddies!)